


did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

by MANIAvinyl



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Crying, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It’s not like Pete hates himself it’s more that he loves Patrick too much, M/M, Peterick, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, he’s just lonely I guess? yeah, so not really self-hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 09:22:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13714710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MANIAvinyl/pseuds/MANIAvinyl
Summary: Pete’s a lost soul, roaming the west without an end or beginning. He can’t go back east; he can never go back east. But Patrick lives in the midwest, in the cold snow and on the steel rail of Lake Michigan where they wrote their first album. Still, they’re in love, so much so that it hurts.Based on the Pink Floyd song Wish You Were Here.





	did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

**Author's Note:**

> This song holds so much meaning to me. It kind of reminds me of what Pete said once, something along the lines of how he looks at love, in a strange, twisted way. It’s kind of like how I love my hometown, but I hate it at the same time; like that warped religious vibe of finding God in something God would hate. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but that’s okay. I think it’s meant to be like that.
> 
> Anyways. Enjoy haha

Pete had that song on repeat that whole summer. To him, Pink Floyd will always feel like hot, hazy california days, a soft ocean breeze, and the smell of dried out cactus. Because this was where he belonged now — this dusty city on the pacific coast. He had left Chicago, at least in his mind, the first time he landed in LA. 

He could never go back, no matter how much he wanted to — even if he did want to. He fit in here, in this stone metropolis, passed out in between mountains of cheap cocaine and enough alcohol to fill Lake Michigan. Chicago just seemed dull, after all these years of the western neon lights leaking into his eyes, filling his brain and replacing his blood with pixelated LED. 

Actually, truly, he did wish he wanted to go back home, but he knew he was the kind of kid who never grew up; he never grew out of that restless, curious soul that so many people leave behind. He was a wanderer at heart. 

Maybe it was the weed. Maybe it was the heroine he took once at that party when he was nearly black-out drunk. Or maybe it was just the people that lived here. But something about LA changed Pete, so much so that he could never go back to the cold, dried out suburbia that he called the midwest town he grew up in.

He never liked his old friends anyways. 

Now he lived alone, riding out in the desert, wasting away in some convertible vintage car or dusty hotel with whatever girl — or guy — decided to ride along with him that week or month or year. They never stay, and besides, he never wanted them to. There was and will always be only one person that could ever hold Pete’s attention. He still held Pete’s attention.

_“So, so you think you can tell?_  
Heaven from Hell?  
Blue skies from Pain?” 

Yes, this person was the reason Pete even went on like this, alone, living hotel to hotel, writing his life away from the window seat of a midnight Coaster Train on the pacific coast highway.

They were different, Pete and Patrick. They were so different that it hurt, because Pete knew they could never be together but he wanted it, he wanted it so bad. He had found religion, all those years ago, in the way Patrick said his name. It didn’t matter how. 

_“Can you tell a green field_  
From a cold steel rail?  
A smile from a veil?  
Do you think you can tell?” 

Patrick lived, in his mind, in the place he grew up in, and he always would. Patrick’s head was build different than Pete’s in the way that he never felt the need to run away from it all. 

For Pete, running was everything. For Patrick, it wasn’t. 

_“Did they get you to trade_  
Your heroes for ghosts?  
Hot ashes for trees?  
Hot air for a cool breeze?  
Cold comfort for change?” 

Deep down, Pete wanted Patrick to open his eyes and look around, he wanted for him to see that it was all fake, that there was more to life than a familiar city — he just knew that Patrick didn’t want to open his eyes. 

He only wished he and Patrick had a chance. 

Even though they were thousands of miles apart physically, only coming together for albums and tours, they could never really be together — they were too different. Opposite souls.

Pete lived in the dark corners of his imagination, in the change that he could see in the world around him, while Patrick lived in the snow, in the icy railings on Lake Shore Drive where they wrote their first album. 

_“Did you exchange_  
A walk on part in the war  
For a lead role in a cage?” 

Pete would call Patrick sometimes, usually with alcohol on his breath, slurring his words that say something alone the lines of “move west with me, and we can be together” and always ending with Patrick saying softly that he can’t. He never can.

And it would hurt Pete, because he knows _he_ can’t move back east — it would kill him. He needs change, he needs to move, not to be stuck in one place. The midwest was stagnant.

But being with Patrick would cure him, wouldn’t it? It was a cure to his restless soul, a cure to whatever demon lived inside that told him to run. 

And then he would be reminded that he had tried that, he had tried to live in the midwest again and he almost fell off the Earth itself, because Illinois is not for the kinds of kids who never grew up. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said softly, voice crackling through the phone from a thousand miles away. Pete flopped back on the bed, phone pushed up to his ear as he swallowed the growing lump in his throat. It was nights like these that he really wished Patrick would peel his eyelids back and see the world past the city of Chicago, see Pete, and how much he needed him. 

“I can’t go back, you know that,” Pete’s voice wavered because he knew the answer; they’d had this conversation all before. Too many times.

“And I can’t move out west with you,” Patrick sighed, repeating the line as if on cue. Pete shut his eyes.

“Why?” he whispered, even though he already knew the answer.

“My family’s here,” Patrick replied gently. He knew how much Pete was hurting. “Everything I have is here, I can’t just leave that.”

Pete let out a shaky breath. “Why are we like this?” 

“Like what, Pete?”

“You told me we were soulmates. Soulmates are meant to end up together.”

“Not always, Pete. Can’t you see?”

“Don’t you love me?” Pete countered. Patrick laughed, but it sounded shattered.

“Of course I love you. I’ll probably always love you.”

“Then come with me! We can run away, we can—“

“It would never work,” Patrick told him softly. He sounded tired. “Me and you — we’re too alike in the worst ways, and different in the — I don’t know. It wouldn’t work.” 

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that I don’t want to move west, and leave everything that I have behind. I know that the western lights are too bright for my midwest eyes.”

“They adjust.”

“I don’t want to adjust, Pete. I belong here, back home. You know that.”

A broken sob sounded from Pete’s lips. He couldn’t keep on living like this. 

“I’ll die without you,” Pete told him shakily, opening his eyes and staring up at the cracked-paint ceiling of the hotel. 

“No, you won’t,” Patrick replied softly. “I visit, I come around every once and a while.”

Pete decided that was probably worse, getting a taste of Patrick but never really having him.

“It’s not enough,” Pete whined. 

“Learn to love someone else,” Patrick said, voice breaking. “We’re not meant for each other.”

“We are,” Pete muttered. “We are meant for each other. You love me.”

“Then come home. Come back east.”

“I can’t do that,” Pete whispered. “It’s too familiar.”

“I’m too familiar,” Patrick corrected. “I know how you work, Pete, I know you better than you even know yourself.” his voice sort of cracked, giving away how much this hurt him. “I remind you of home, of your gray static childhood. You hate that.”

Pete held his breath. He knew Patrick was right — Patrick stood for everything that scared him. But maybe that’s what he loved most, that’s what drew him in. 

“Why do you love me?” Pete asked finally. 

He could almost hear Patrick’s sad smile, almost see him staring out his window from his apartment in the middle of a snowstorm. 

“Why do I love you?” he said, sighing. “Because you’re gentle. You’ve got that tough guy attitude, running from everything you know but really, you’re just scared. You’re gentle. That’s what I love about you.”

“You love that I’m scared?” 

“No, I love that you’re complicated. You’re not like everyone else.”

Pete could feel his heart warm, in the worst way because he could never really have Patrick, and it hurt. It was like he knew that fire inside would kill him in the end, he just didn’t care. He nurtured it.

“You want to know why I love you?”

A soft laugh. “Sure.”

“Because you know how to reach me, when all these doctors and fans and friends can’t. I’m flying up in the sky and you’re the only one that can bring me home.”

Patrick was silent, save for the gentle breathing Pete could hear though the phone. 

“I’m floating away, Patrick,” Pete’s voice broke. “I need you. You’re my oxygen; I need you.”

“You know it’ll hurt,” Patrick warned. “When I come out west. It’ll hurt you.”

“It’ll hurt you, too,” Pete murmured. “But you’re still going to do it.” 

Patrick paused, and then a sharp exhale told Pete he was amused. “Yeah, it will. And yeah, I am.”

Pete smiled, the flame growing. It’s the flame that will kill him but he’s nurturing it, he realized, which kind of meant he wants to die. 

Well, yes, but he’ll let Patrick kill him. He’ll let his love — no, obsession — for Patrick win.

“I’m going to leave you,” Patrick warned, after a moment. “I’m going to leave you again, come back, and it’ll hurt us both. Do you want that?”

_“How I wish, how I wish you were here_  
We're just two lost souls  
Swimming in a fish bowl  
year after year” 

“If it means I get to see you.” 

_one last time._

—

Patrick arrived later that week, on Thursday. 

Hot breath. Heavy lips, crashing against each other.

Roaming fingers.

Epiphany.

Patrick was everything Pete needed, he realized, sat up in the bed, lighting his cigarette. Patrick was still breathing heavily, and Pete couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He couldn’t let his eyes rest on Patrick in his full, desperate beauty — they weren’t pure enough. To Pete, Patrick was like some sort of angel on earth; he was a holy being. Pete found religion in the way Patrick said his name. 

Pete’s spent his whole life playing with fire, sleeping with demons and Patrick was his only safety.

“I missed you,” Patrick whispered, sitting up. 

“I missed you, too,” Pete replied, blowing a stream of smoke and watching as it floated to the ceiling, settling in a pool in the corner of the room, lingering. 

“You’ve given up,” Patrick realized after a while, sliding his shirt back on and zipping up his jeans. 

Pete blinked in surprise, eyes trailing over Patrick finally. 

“What?”

“I said you’ve given up.”

“What does that mean?”

“You didn’t used to smoke.”

“Oh.” Pete looked down at the little stick, with the glowing orange end, and shrugged. “Why does that mean I’ve given up?”

“You used to be scared of smoking,” Patrick told him, standing up and pushing the curtains open so they could see the city. 

“I’ve conquered my fear,” Pete smirked.

“No, you’ve given up. You don’t care what hurts you anymore. I told you already, Pete, I know you better than you know yourself.”

“You sound anxious.”

“I _am_ anxious,” Patrick sighed, turning around. Pete was pretty sure Patrick really was an angel, with the way the city glowed around his silhouette, and the way he held himself, like the world was crumbling around him but he was still standing, still strong. Beaten, exhausted, but still alive. 

“Why?”

Patrick bit his lip, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Pete, staring out at the city now. “You’re dying.”

“I’ve always been dying,” Pete said. “You’re just noticing?”

Patrick sighed. “This is different. Why are you drawn to what kills you?”

Pete shrugged.

“I wish you didn’t love me.” Patrick murmured. “Then maybe you could live.”

“I wish I didn’t love you,” Pete chuckled. “Wish you didn’t love me. I kind of wish we never met.”

“That’s a pretty twisted way to look at love, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” Pete grinned tiredly. “Everything we do is twisted, though.”

“That’s fair,” Patrick admitted. “But it’s too late now. The damage is done.”

“Yeah.”

“And after it’s all done, do you want to die?”

“Patrick, I’ve wanted to die since I was a kid. It’s nothing new.”

“I hate that, you know? I hate that so much.” Patrick ran his fingers though his hair. Pete knew what he was thinking about: wouldn’t it be nice if they were normal.

“I know,” Pete sighed. “There’s nothing I can do, though. The meds don’t work, the doctors can’t fix me.”

“How many times?” Patrick whispered, tracing his fingers along the scars on Pete’s arm. There were four deep vertical ones, jagged and stitched up, that were physical proof of Pete’s ongoing internal war. 

“Six,” Pete told him quietly, studying the scars. He was so gross, it made him want to throw up. He hated the scars, he hated them so much. 

“First two were in Chicago. I know those,” Patrick murmured, running the tips of his fingers along both fading scars. “I was so scared, you know that? I thought you were going to die. Leave me for real.”

“I still might,” said Pete. Patrick shook his head.

“No, you won’t.”

“How are you so sure?” Pete asked. “How do you know?”

Patrick watched him with a quiet gaze. “Because you’re a fighter. You won’t let it win.”

Pete kind of smiled at that, like a half smile that said he liked the idea. 

Patrick sighed, continuing. He let his fingers graze over the newest scar — not new, a year old, but darker than the rest. 

“That one. How come I never heard about that one?” 

Pete shut his eyes, letting his mind take him back to that night in Phoenix. 

He hated the desert, he hated it so much so he didn’t understand why he was always drawn back to it. The sky was dark, the mohave night letting the stars shine through a million times better than the city. He watched the sky move that night, the Orion belt shifting from the east to west. The further it moved from Chicago, the deeper the stone in his stomach dropped. 

She was a bleach blonde, straight white hair and thin legs. Dark lipstick. Tired eyes. She was pretty, yes, but lost. Somehow, Pete always found himself drawn to the ones who are lost.

It was fast love, the kind that only lasts a week or two but it was nice, it was gentle and rough and sharp all at once. It’s the kind of love you remember because of the person you miss while it happens, not the actual person you’re with. 

She saved him that night in Phoenix, holding him as he collapsed after digging a blade through the already-scarred flesh on his wrist, watching the blood as it pooled around his hand, in his palm. He doesn’t remember much of that night, just her face and his blood on the marble floor of that hotel, then flashing hospital lights.

“Phoenix. Last May,” he told Patrick tiredly, tugging his sleeve down. “I’m done with this.”

“Alright,” Patrick said, eyes sad. “I’m sorry.”

Pete bit his lip. “I don’t like remembering.”

“Love can’t save you,” Patrick breathed. “What do you think would happen? If I did move out here with you? Do you really think I would fix you?”

Well, now that Patrick said it out loud Pete wasn’t so sure. That realization crushed him, because that’s what he’d been banking on: it was the hope that Patrick would save him in the end.

“I don’t know,” was all he said.

“Cause I can’t. I can see it in you, that somehow you think I’m the answer. I’m a false reality to you, Pete.”

“No, you’re not!” Pete snapped, standing up. “You’re not, can’t you see that? It doesn’t matter how many people I fall in love with, wasting away on the pacific coast because it all fucking comes back to you!” he broke off with a sob, backed up against the wall. “It comes back to you, Patrick, which means you’re different. You’re not like the rest.”

Patrick was silent. 

“Fucking answer me!” Pete cried, sliding down the wall until he reached the floor. 

“What do we do?” Patrick whispered, and for a moment he looked so incredibly small, and broken that Pete didn’t know what to think.

“We’re a dying star,” Pete choked. “It’s hopeless.”

“What do we do? You’re — you’re just as suicidal as you were six years ago. I’m no better off...“ he wiped his sleeve under his eyes. “We’re both gonna die, aren’t we?”

Pete shut his eyes tight, feeling his chest constrict and his heart rattle in his rib cage. Was Patrick right? Was he really just as fucked up as Pete? Was Patrick being Pete’s savior just a figure of Pete’s imagination? 

“Do you love me?” Pete asked hoarsely, looking up through blurry eyes. 

“I love you so much it hurts,” Patrick whispered. 

“Then stay, stay with me, here,” Pete sobbed. “Please. Please, just stay.”

Pete felt his world slow when Patrick nodded, finally, for the first time in six years Patrick nodded.

“You will?” he croaked, and Patrick locked red eyes with red eyes and nodded again.

“Because guess what, Pete?” he whispered, falling to the floor to sit next to Pete, back against the wall, crammed in between the glass door to the balcony and the TV cabinet. 

“What?”

“I’ve given up, too.”

_“Running over the same old ground_  
And how we found  
The same old fears  
Wish you were here” 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ll let you choose if they really made it in the end. I kind of like vague endings - it’s kind of like what Patrick said once, that art is only art when the audience makes it their own. 
> 
> To me, Pink Floyd will always be hot summer days, wasting away on the coast, getting high in the canyon that smells like dried out cactus down the street from the house I grew up in.
> 
> Anyways. Thanks for reading, it’d be cool if you left a comment or at least maybe left kudos! 
> 
> -s


End file.
